Online Autumn Lecture Series
Crossing Boundaries: Victorian art, Design and Architecture
We are used to the idea of Victorian architecture, art and design as separate disciplines, with their own historians. But that seriously misrepresents the way that many nineteenth-century architects and designers thought and practiced. They conceived of the fine and decorative arts as part of an architectural whole – a total work of art.
These lectures will boldly break down disciplinary boundaries in a discussion of the use of colour and texture across the whole range of Victorian design and analyses of the important roles played by mosaic, stained glass, embroidery and three-dimensional wall coverings.
Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design by Matthew Winterbottom
Tue 6 November, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Matthew Winterbottom talks about the recent Ashmolean Exhibition Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design that sought to challenge widely held perceptions that the Victorian age was dark and gloomy. As well as reviving the rich colours of the ancient and medieval past, of the Middle East, India, China and Japan and the natural world, artists and architects embraced the new vivid hues which technological and scientific advances made possible. As Britain’s industrial revolution gained pace, new scientific breakthroughs allowed the Victorians to become increasingly revolutionary in their use of colour, with new hues greeted with both excitement and suspicion. This explosion of colour was embraced by artists, designers and many others in all walks of 19th-century life.
Matthew Winterbottom is the Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
All attendees will be sent a recording of the talk.
I mage: Detail of the Great Bookcase, front view, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. CC BY-SA 4.0